Microsoft confirms its new Edge browser won't support Silverlight

Microsoft has already announced that its new Microsoft Edge web browser in Windows 10 will not be using many of the features that were a part of its old Internet Explorer browsers. That includes support for ActiveX-based plug-ins. Today, Microsoft confirmed that the ditching of ActiveX also means Edge won't support the company's own Silverlight web-based media player.

In a blog post. Microsoft said:

"Support for ActiveX has been discontinued in Microsoft Edge, and that includes removing support for Silverlight. The reasons for this have been discussed in previous blogs and include the emergence of viable and secure media solutions based on HTML5 extensions. Microsoft continues to support Silverlight, and Silverlight out-of-browser apps can continue to use it. Silverlight will also continue to be supported in Internet Explorer 11, so sites continue to have Silverlight options in Windows 10. At the same time, we encourage companies that are using Silverlight for media to begin the transition to DASH/MSE/CENC/EME based designs and to follow a single, DRM-interoperable encoding work flow enabled by CENC. This represents the most broadly interoperable solution across browsers, platforms, content and devices going forward."

Silverlight was first introduced in 2007 as an alternative Adobe's Flash player for web-based media. It was most famously used by Netflix for its desktop streaming video service. The last major release was Silverlight 5 in 2011 and Microsoft has not indicated plans to release a major new version. Most sites have now abandoned Silverlight and Netflix is transitioning its web player to HTML5.

Reader comments

Microsoft confirms its new Edge browser won't support Silverlight

Firstly have no computer experience or skills other than using the programs. My issue is that I complete my BAS on a program that must use Silverlight. I have upgraded my computer to Window 10 and now cant use this program. It asks me to install Silverlight and then says i have already installed it and doesnt go any further. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Why to kill your own and mature technology ... and still support Flash ???? It's a nonsense.

SilverLight is far from just a media reader, it is probably the best RIA framework for LOB applications.

Until now Silverlight is the only technology that passed with success the jungle of browser versions in our enterprise.

Enterprises are just going crazy with the incompatibility of html / js web applications with so many differnt versions of browsers, with so many providers all around the world ! They have to find virtualization or remote solutions to continue ... to work. And spend money all day long to explain this to final users. Crazy world !

We want Silverlight to be in the next RoadMap :

... Silverlight, WPF everywhere or whatever the name can be ... if we have xaml + c# on the web.

I understand your concerns. The modern web has moved beyond native plugins for interoperability and security reasons. It's not about Silverlight specifically but ActiveX controls in general. We continue to support Silverlight in Internet Explorer 11.

There are many sites that still require Flash. Also other browsers support Flash so again for interoperability reasons we must support that. And to be clear we do not support Flash as an ActiveX. We work closely with Adobe support it natively so that will be updated via Windows Update.

For enterprises we continue to ship and support IE11. It will be included in Windows 10. We've done a great deal of work to help with compatibility with Enterprise Mode.

"There are many sites that still require Flash." and many are requiring SilverLight too...

I don't suppose Silverlight needs to be activated with Active X technilogy if Flash can do without :

Microsoft owns the SilverLight technology, not Flash : Can't it be adapted for Edge ?

For me it remains incomprehensible : someone has to explain the paradox !

Why not intergrate SilverLight technology directly in Edge : for us it can make the difference and a sign that we (enterprises) can continue to trust in Microsoft.

"We've done a great deal of work to help with compatibility with Enterprise Mode." For some simple application it can be a solution but for most of web applications we use, Enterprise mode is just useless and doesn't work well (the is no virtualisation just emulation), even with some Microsoft Applications !

Until now, the best compatibility mode resides in SilverLight.

We are not satisfied with the split into 2 browsers IE and Edge : for end users outside our walls, we expect many many problems !!!

And the support with IE 11 don't calm us very well : the sign is done, you are abandonning us.

For us : Again a new browser to manage ! IE 9 10 11, FireFox, Chrome and now Edge ???? Microsoft are driving us crazy !!

We don't trust this new roadmap: if the termination point is IE 11 ... Will there be IE 12, 13 ... and if so, do they will support SilverLight ???

We were waiting for clarification : Microsoft is making all the things more and more confusing.

If it's an activex control then it probably won't work with Microsoft Edge. We have announced that there is an extension model coming but that won't be in the inital release. If it's important to your browsing experience then you'll be good on IE. IE11 is not going anywhere. Microsoft Edge will be the default browser but IE11 will still be available with Windows 10.

I was never keen on silverlight. Funny though that many media streaming sites have actually spent years moving over to it because they believe it to be more secure to use. NowTV is one of them who advise you not to use Google Chrome anymore because they drop silverlight support, same sort of thing for bbc sport, and Sky Go. Now MickySoft are basically killing off the technically making it no viable for web developers,

It's true that the modern web standards were not ready to do the things that are neccessary for large scalable streaming video sites. That's no longer the case the web standards are converging on DASH/MSW/EME/CENC so now is the time for sites like the ones you mention to get ready for that. The blog post that John links to as the source for the article above goes into the gory details if you are interested the technical underpinnings to what's going on there.

Right decision of Microsoft for dropping support for their own Silverlight platform. I think HTML5 is faster,responsive and new-gen webcode. With HTML5 Edge has no competition in Browser world(P.S. Edge has already beaten Chrome)

Hi all, Just wanted to give my opinion on this and I don't know alot about HTML5 but for the first time in in year os two I'm able to watch video from one of our local news stations (wneptv.com) on a windows phone, after reading and learning from this article i went to the station and WOW I could now watch live and record video. You have to understand when satellite tv goes out due to storm's it's nice to see the news in another way.

"Microsoft continues to support Silverlight" No it doesn't it stabbed all us .Net developers in the back when it lost faith in its own superior Lob web technology.
Silverlight is beyond doubt better technology than HTML5 , its obvious downfall was a lack of reach. A Strongly typed C# is far more productive environment for Line of Business web development than flaky HTML5, which is still not rendered consistently across different browsers. . Facebook famously dropped HTML5 to go back native.
So will Edge support Flash? Probably because Microsoft cannot commit to any clear direction.

They only actively supported Silverlight for 4 measly years? It should have been killed off long ago. But as someone else said, it continues to paint MS as a company that can't commit to a path/plan as of late

Maybe this is old news but Facebook moments application used HTML5 and had a lot of performance issues, Safari and Chrome rendered the app differently which means HTML5 is a mess right now.

Now Facebook is using C++ a language that has more than 25 years old. HTML5 is not so great. I even used Pipelight in Ubuntu Linux which was a Wine Plugin to install Silverlight on Linux OS. Why did Apple and Google never used this in their browsers, its an incognite, but it could have saved millions for Facebook's Moments app.

Silverlight at least was a way of doing things faster before HTML5 arrived.

So thats why my ERP system which runs in a browser running Silverlight did not run on it then, good luck with the transition they have only been at it like 2 years and its still unuseable. So we are saying it too dangerous to run in Edge so run IE11 instead cos that is somehow hardened for use with Silverlight of course. Chrome is doing something similar which is already causing problems when people are trying to run the silverlights components. I guess we have found another reason why we cannot move on then.

Seems odd that a Window tech forum would choose to pick on Silverlight. Fact is, Edge does not run ActiveX controls. As such, there are many software applications that will not run in the new browser. Silverlight is just one of those.

That sucks. I was hoping Edge would be widely compatible despite not having plugin support. Integrating Flash and Silverlight would have made Edge the "goto" browser. Works with all sites out of the gate. But alas, that's not what Edge is about. Which means I will continue to require multiple browsers to go everywhere and that sucks. Very disappointed.

And, now I will have to use a desktop browser on a touch tablet to use Silverlight. That's horrendous.

I've been doing programming for 40+ years. Mainframe scientific, business, systems programmer, PC, the whole gamut. Lots of environments with lots of tools. Silverlight was the best. It could still have been improved, but I loved it. Especially with Remobjects Oxygene compiler. Html by comparison is a mess. In my whole career, the fate of Silverlight has been the most depressing, disappointing thing from any vendor. We all lose. And the most insulting thing is to include flash. Silverlight did far more than "media". Such a giant waste of time spent and a technology frittered away. Sad really.

Chrome is the most popular browser, and you can't watch Sky Go on Chrome because of its blocking of Silverlight. I doubt losing IE will bother them too much. I think they're just too lazy or feckless to make it work with HTML.

Here we go again, Microsoft sending out mixed signals on Silverlight. So they won't support silverlight in Edge, but will continue to support silverlight in IE11. So is it dead or isn't it?

Silverlight is used for more than just media - and I'd even say its used as a platform for devloping internal LOB apps for Businesses more than for media. We still use it heavily at our company today. Its really frustrating that Microsoft STILL after all these years has not officially given word if Silverlight is really dead or not. Until they do so, we'll keep using it, or until it doesn't meet our needs anymore.

I don't think there's mixed signals, really. Microsoft should just come out and say Silverlight and all related technologies are a dead-end, instead of being coy. They're the masters at quietly dropping technologies that people are invested in. Don't ever start developing a project using the latest and greatest Microsoft platforms.

Every tech company has these same practices unfortunately. Symantec, Adobe, QuickBooks, you name. They all just sort of drop support slowly on their software or they just remain totally silent on the status of it. Sucks but its the nature of the beast...

No it doesn't, if you open settings on the edge browser, go to advanced settings, you will see the is a slider that reads, "use Adobe flash" that is on by default which gives you the ability to disable it as well. No disrespect, but a lot of people in here call themselves technical, but in reality, there not.

once again.... MAKE UP YOUR MINDS. Do you guys ever go in a direction and stay with it? On, off, over, under, front, back.... No wonder nothing ever becomes a complete product with you. You never stick with it long enough for it to fully develop!

@missionsparta How about it became obsolete and there is no reason to support it anymore? That's the nature of software. Sometimes things become deprecated. Just like Flash, it is falling out of favor in many cases because Html 5 and the like have become more viable and do not require plugins to function or extra resources to support cross-platform use.

Yeah I'm struggling to notice it in any other place. I think the most high profile use of Silverlight other than those two examples were the olympics on NBC a few years ago. But that was probably built by Microsoft.

I noticed a lot of CPU and RAM consumption once upon a time while watching a HD movie on Netflix, but that was because NO hardware acceleration was available in Silverlight 4, after upgrading to silverlight 5 with hardware acceleration everything moved smooth.

My question is: how much optimized are HTML5 extentions compared to the best implamentation of silverlight 5 with HA?
Any link would be useful.